Last Week of School - The Teaching Texan

Our last week of school is coming to a close.

Every day this week has been a complete whirlwhind! Field day was Monday, and I got to monitor one of the 8 bounce houses that we had. Yes, I said 8 bounce houses! Here is a picture of my view for most of the day. It was so much fun for the kiddos, but I was absolutely exhausted!

Today we had an ice cream sundae party to reward the students for passing timed math facts quizzes. Why on Earth would I want to get them all sugared up?

Ok… Let me explain. All year long we have worked on building strong conceptual understanding of addition, subtraction, etc. But, it was time to build some fluency to help get the kiddos ready for 2nd grade! We created 11 tests for the kiddos to progress through (addition of 0s, 1s, and 2s for example). Each time a student got a 100% in the 3 minute time period, he or she got to advance to the next test. The reward for passing each test was a different item for their sundaes. The first two tests earned them a spoon and bowl respectively, then the third test was where they actually earned ice cream. After that the kiddos got to add chocolate syrup, cherries, gummies, oreos, and a few other tasty additions! Let me tell you… Engagement was at an all time HIGH! Of course we wanted to reward the kiddos who did not pass the first 3 tests, so we gave them a lollipop and talked about all the hard work they put into it! After the kids ate their sundaes, we had some sidewalk chalk time as our countdown surprise for today. They had a blast!

One of my first summer projects is to get all of the ice cream sundae documents looking all spiffy and loaded onto TPT. Check back for it soon!

Tomorrow we will celebrate our year with an award ceremony in the classroom. Before our party, I’m going to assign each kiddo a job that they need to complete to help get the classroom cleaned and packed up. I’ve been doing a lot of packing already since I have to move everything home until I can get into my new school, but I’ve saved some of the easier jobs for them to help with. They’re also going to clean out their desks and take all of their belongings and workbooks home tomorrow.

Another important goal for tomorrow is for each student to complete a “Thank You” card for a teacher, janitor, cafeteria worker, interventionist, specials teacher or other adult that has helped them succeed this year. I think it’s really important that the students learn to show appreciation and value what each employee at the school has to offer them. I also think it will make all the recipients feel special to know that the students have noticed what these adults have done to help them.

Suffice it to say, I’m basically treating tomorrow as if it were the last day, even though we have one more half day next Tuesday. I’m assuming several kiddos (and know that some for sure) won’t be attending that final half day.

When I was prepping for this week, I knew that I would need a visual schedule to get me through it! With crazy lunch schedules, specials schedules and celebrations, I was scared I would inevitably be late to something or forget to take the kiddos somewhere. Now my schedule isn’t as nice looking as some of the ones I’ve seen out there, but these are a completely different format that our typical plans. It was a nice change to have everything so easy to see!!

Thanks to this handy sheet my week went by smoothly!

Some of the activities we are doing this week can be found from other sellers on TPT.

“Suiting Up for Next Year” was created by Michelle Hudgeons and can be found here.

The bucket glyphs are a great freebie from Teaching Heart and can be found here.

The “Thank You” cards are a freebie from Mrs. Padak and can be found here.

The nouns, verbs, and adjectives sort is another great freebie, but I can’t for the life of me find where I got it from! If you recognize it, please let me know so I can give whoever created it credit!

Time to get the gifts prepped that I got the kiddos. They’re nothing too fancy… some plastic beach buckets filled with goodies and one very special gift. I’ll share more about that tomorrow!

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